A Special Message From Gerry

I
wanted to take this opportunity to thank the many members of our
showband community who have sent me, my wife Kim and older son
Gerald, their thoughts, condolences and prayers after the tragic
death of our sixteen year old son, Grant on November 18, 2006.
He was a passenger in a car which skidded out of control and was
hit by an oncoming truck on a dark country road in rural South
Carolina.

As a tribute to his life and love of music,
we have set up a website at
www.grantgallagher.com
which we hope will give the world some small idea of the
wonderful person and talented musician we have lost. He had been
playing guitar for only two years and had already far surpassed
my meager skills as a guitarist. A video of his playing is
posted on the website.

I know that we are not the only members of
the showband family to have lost a child or other family member
in such a tragic way and our hearts go out to all those that
have suffered similar losses. For those of you who have been
lucky enough to never know this pain, I encourage you to
never miss a chance to tell your children or other family
members how much you love them.

Despite the grief which has gripped us
since his passing, we are coping well and life goes on. We are
working through the healing process which will allow us
to cope with the loss, although we know we will never truly get
over it.

As for myself, I will keep the
www.irish-showbands.com website running and growing and have
dedicated the site to Grant's memory.

I have also relocated back to Ireland as of
December 11th, 2006 to take a position as Managing Director of an
entertainment licensing company in Ireland, so I will be able to
spend even more time tracking down and adding more showband
information, photos, and music to the website. We may even get
to have a few reunion gigs with some of our old band mates.

In closing, I want to thank you all again
for your thoughts and prayers. When I started this website back
in 2002, I never imagined that I would build such wonderful,
lasting friendships with so many great fans and musicians of the
showband era, of which Kim and myself count ourselves lucky to
have been part of back in the "good old days."